Body of Ahmadiyah follower unearthed after burial in West Java

[News_Editor]

Body of Ahmadiyah follower unearthed after burial in West Java

2011-03-05 02:42:09 GMT+7 (ICT)

BANDUNG, INDONESIA (BNO NEWS) -- The body of an Ahmadiyah follower on Friday was unearthed by an unidentified group of people shortly after the burial in West Java, the Jakarta Globe reported.

The body of Mulyadi was removed from its tomb by men in Bandung, West Java. The corpse of the late 55-year-old, who was buried on Thursday, was then left abandoned in the graveyard.

"It's true that the tomb of a follower from Buni Jaya village was dug out," confirmed Ahmad Sulaeman, spokesman for the Ahmadiyah congregation in Bandung. "He was from Bogor but his family lives in Buni Jaya and they wanted him to be buried there."

Mulyadi was buried on Thursday at about 9:30 a.m. local time at the Buni Jaya public cemetery. Half an hour later, a group of men arrived and forced the grave digger to unearth the body.

The relatives and other Ahmadiyah followers later took the body and buried on the property of a friend. The incident may incite more tensions between Christians and Ahmadiyah Muslims.

"This is very dangerous because it shows that haters will do anything to attack Ahmadiyah," said Firdaus Mubarik, spokesman for the Indonesia Ahmadiyah Congregation (JAI). "We will probably have to bury our followers on a special land, separate from the public cemetery."

Meanwhile, Indonesia's Home Affairs Minister Gamawan Fauz said that the federal government approved the decisions of the West and East Java governors to ban Ahmadiyah activities in their respective jurisdiction.

"We have received copies of the regulation of the East Java governor as well as that of the West Java governor. So far we have not found anything in them that runs against the Joint Ministerial Decree (SKB) on the activities of minority religious groups," said Fauz.

The provincial governments of East and West Java officially banned all activities related to Ahmadiyah religious sect. In addition, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was urged to issue a decree banning the religious group which has been the focus of attacks for the last two years.

In West Java's Banten province, 25 members of the Ahmadiyah sect were attacked by a group of around 1,500 residents of Umbulan village. The attack stemmed from the refusal of the Ahmadiyah members to to leave the house of a local group leader. Six Ahmadiyah members were killed.

The Ahmadiyah sect was labeled as a devious sect by state authorities in a joint decree which legalized brutal attacks toward the group members. The chairman of the National Commission on Human Rights, Ifdhal Kasim said the state has absolutely no right to declare a certain group as a devious sect.

Furthermore, Kasim added that the main obligation of the government is to protect its citizens regardless of their religion and it should focus on enforcing the law instead. From 2007 to 2010 there were 342 attacks on Ahmadiyah members.

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